The former Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini has advised the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to look into developing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for his Metropolitan Municipal and District Chief Executives (DCEs) and Regional Ministers in order to be able to monitor illegal mining activities at the regional and district levels.
This advice was given after the President launched the National Consultative Forum on Small-Scale Mining on Wednesday, April 14, 2021.
The forum is a two-day roundtable programme to discuss challenges confronting the small-scale mining sector.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini stated that he thinks that the aforementioned leaders should be able to exercise jurisdiction over their areas and the KPIs will help keep them in check.
“I have always said that if the President and this government are really committed to fighting illegal mining, the first major steps government must take is fixing its DCEs and Regional Ministers with Key Performance Indicators. There is no land that is not owned by somebody, so the DCEs must exercise jurisdiction over the areas they superintend over.”
“And no DCE or Regional Minister or MCE can tell me that they are unaware of galamsey activities in their area. The fear is that the DCEs and MCEs know the people behind the galamsey activities, but I am very hopeful and convinced that if the president should fix these KPIs for his leaders, it will curb the menace,” he added
Small-scale mining dialogue must be devoid of partisanship – Akufo-Addo
President Akufo-Addo is hopeful the National Consultative Forum on Small-Scale Mining will result in a national policy backed by a national consensus.
He wants the consensus to be on a “sustainable method of mining the minerals in our land.”
The President also expects that the outcomes of the forum will “be beyond partisan politics.”
“We cannot have one part of the political divide campaigning for galamsey in the bush and the other waging an official fight against galamsey in the open,” President Akufo-Addo said as he launched the forum on Wednesday, April 14, 2021.
The forum will have deliberations on possible solutions and inputs from key mining experts, the Small-Scale Mining Association, the Coalition of Civil Society Against Illegal Small-Scale Mining, among others.
Source:Fiilafmonline/CitiNews
